“GENIUS FOR NAGGING”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23706, 13 January 1939, Page 11

“GENIUS FOR NAGGING”

SECOND MARRIAGE FAILS (From Oub Own Correspondent* (By, Air Mail) LONDON, Dec. 21. Mr Justice Langton, in the Divorce Court dismissed cross-petitions brought by a husband and wife who had married one another a second time. The man petitioned for divorce on the grounds of desertion, while the woman had sought a judicial separation alleging cruelty. The judge gave his considered decision on the cases of Mr Wilfrid Lawson Spence, who lives at a Leamington Spa Hotel, and Mrs Yvonne Marie Spence, who had travelled from South Africa to contest her husband’s petition. . Mr Justice Langton said that Mr and Mrs Spence married for the first time in 1913, when the wife, French by origin, was under 21 and 28 years her husband’s junior. In 1920 Mrs Spence divorced her husband in Scotland because of his adultery with a woman whom Mr Spence afterwards married.- Six years later Mr Spence divorced this woman and in 1927 remarried his former wife.

Mrs Spence, the judge added, declared that she was forced by her husband’s cruelty to leave him, and that he acquiesced in her action in leaving home. Violent Political Views

Mr Justice Langton described Mr Spence as a man of high temper and obviously of the most violent political views.

“ Only with the greatest difficulty,” remarked the judge, “ did I succeed in preventing Mr Spence launching upon a diatribe against a distinguished ex-Cabinet Minister who had political connections with Leamington.” , Mr Spence had described his wife as having a “ genius for nagging and the worst sense of humour in the world.” He was obviously ready to believe that in meanness, avarice and ingratitude she was without a rival. Regarding Mrs Spence, the judge observed: “ I am satisfied that she was hard and unsympathetic and went to work in the worst possible way to deal with a spirited and choleric husband, who was not without great qualities of mind and heart.” Rough-and-Tumble It was not surprising that in 1933 and 1934 the contest between Mr and Mrs Spence at times degenerated into physical struggles. Mrs Spence complained of a series of acts which amounted to nothing more than her natural portion of the damage accruing from a rough-and-tumble. The couple’s married life came to shipwreck the second time solely because two people of inflexible will were daily pitting themselves against each other in every small rub of married life without any particle of mutual affection.

On one occasion his wife employed detectives to follow Mr Spence, but they were not able to find him out in anything more serious than kissing a hospital nurse of mature years. Mr Justice Langton found that Mr Spence was not guilty of any cruelty to his wife and did not, by his conduct. force her to leave him.

“As I am clearly of the opinion,” he concluded, “ that Mrs Spence left her husband with his complete consent, and even with his approval, he is unable to claim now that his wife deserted him.”.

Mrs Spence no longer made any cross-claim. So both petitions had to be dismissed.